The present invention relates to a recuperative coke oven and to a process for the operation thereof.
The economy of a coke oven is to a very large degree influenced by the amount of energy required for the heating of the oven, i.e. by the economy of the undergrate firing consumption.
In a conventional regenerative coke oven, i.e. with a horizontal oven chamber with regenerative heat recovery, a constant amount of heat is normally supplied to the oven during the coking operation. However, as is known, the amount of heat required by the oven charge decreases from the beginning to the end of the coking period. Thus, the exhaust gas temperature increases, and this results in undesirably high exhaust gas heat losses. In order to overcome this disadvantage and to reduce fuel consumption, regenerative coke ovens have been adapted to include programmed or program controlled heating cycles, such as shown in DT-OS No. 20 11 261.
However, in a recuperative coke oven, in contrast to a regenerative coke oven, all of the heating flues are exposed to combustion. Thus, neither the heating flues nor the flue gas temperature can be influenced by means of re-adjustment of the heating phases (see for example DT-AS No. 21 64 994).